At a Glance
Harvard admits 4.2% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
55.6%
receive need-based grant aid
$22,926
average debt at graduation
Harvard graduates carry an average of $22,926 in debt.
Merit Aid
20
students received merit aid
$5,279
average merit award
Getting In
Harvard admits 4.2% of applicants.
This school reports SAT section scores but leaves the composite range blank, so there is no mid-50% band to chart.
Mid-50% by section: Reading 720–770 · Math 730–790.
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 27% of the class submitted
95% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Harvard University gives essays less weight than many schools — academics drive most admissions decisions here. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
73.6% of Harvard classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Harvard, 73.6% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
11:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
Live on campus
97%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Harvard's student body is 28.7% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Harvard graduates 61.5% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Harvard graduates 61.5% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Harvard
61.5%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $85,540
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
97.1%
Overall 6-yr rate
96.1%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
98%
98% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Cambridge.
Harvard Square sits at the centre of Cambridge, with the Yard behind a brick wall in the middle of it and the houses running down to the Charles. Boston is across the river, MIT a twenty-minute walk down Massachusetts Avenue, and almost nothing requires a car.
Notable Alumni
John Adams
Second President of the United States and a principal author of the Massachusetts constitution. He graduated here in 1755, at nineteen.
Class of 1755
Yo-Yo Ma
Nineteen-time Grammy winner and the most widely known cellist alive. He graduated here in anthropology in 1976, having already begun performing internationally.
Class of 1976
Natalie Portman
Won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Black Swan. She graduated here in psychology in 2003, taking time out of her film career to do it.
Class of 2003
Mark Zuckerberg
Founded Facebook in a dormitory here in 2004 and left during his second year to build it. He returned in 2017 to receive an honorary degree.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Major city
Cambridge, MA
Best For
Traditions
The house system
After the first year in the Yard, every student is sorted into one of twelve residential houses, each with its own dining hall, tutors, library and traditions. It is the organising unit of social life for the remaining three years.
Housing Day
The March morning when current house members storm first-year dormitories to deliver sorting letters, loudly and in costume.
Primal Scream
Students run through the Yard at midnight before finals begin, a ritual of no fixed origin that the university has stopped trying to discourage.
The Game
The football rivalry with Yale, played since 1875 and known by no other name.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Cambridge
Boston across the river
About 15 minutes by subwayThe North End, Fenway and the harbour, close enough to be an evening out.
Walden Pond
About 30 minutesThoreau's pond, now a state reservation with swimming and a trail around it.
Cape Cod
About 1 hour 30 minutesBeaches and dunes for the warm months.
The White Mountains
About 2 hours 30 minutesNew Hampshire's peaks for hiking and autumn colour.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Boston Logan International (BOS)
About 20 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Boston Red Sox MLB
- Boston Celtics NBA
- Boston Bruins NHL
- New England Patriots NFL
Career Proximity
Boston and Cambridge put biotech, finance, consulting and hospitals within a subway ride, and the alumni network reaches everywhere else.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- McKinsey & Company
- Fidelity Investments
- Moderna
- Bain & Company
Cambridge and downtown Boston, minutes apart by subway
Who Thrives Here
Harvard admits 4.2% and has reinstated the SAT or ACT requirement. The financial picture is the part families most often get wrong: 100% of demonstrated need is met, 55.6% of undergraduates receive need-based aid, the average package is $75,166 and graduates who borrow leave owing about $22,926. For a large share of families the published price is simply not the price. The timeline is the number that surprises: 61.5% graduate within four years and 97.1% within six. Almost everyone finishes; a great many simply take longer, because leave years are ordinary here rather than a sign of trouble, and a family should plan for the possibility rather than be startled by it. Teaching runs closer than the size suggests, with 73.6% of sections under 20 across 6,738 undergraduates, though the ratio of 11:1 is the loosest among the highly selective privates here. What shapes the four years more than anything is the house system: 97.0% live in university housing, and after the first year students are sorted into residential houses with their own dining halls, tutors and traditions, which is where the social life happens rather than in clubs or Greek organisations.